So, the next venue of patent trolling has just been opened. Apple has patented - quite specifically - the wedge shape of the MacBook Air. Not the general design or impression, no - just the wedge shape. This is interesting, because that wedge shape? Hit prior art in 3.2 seconds: the Vaio x505 from 2004. A wedge-shaped, superthin (for its day) laptop - exactly what Apple's design patent claims the company has invented.

What we have now is the patent system abused - allowed to be abused by an incompetent patent office

Maybe not incompetent... they were directed - a little less than a decade ago by the then-current US administration, IIRC - to make a profit as an institution (instead of, as is sane for public institutions, to make a "loss" by itself but to bring societal benefits which more than outweigh institutional costs). So of course they'll going to grant tons of frivolous patents, that's the only way for them to be profitable.

It'll be the point when US citizen look beyond their borders and see more innovation, choice and economic activity in other countries which have a more sensible approach to patents. They'll look at their own and and realise that an economy of a few super-patent-laden monopolies is not giving them what they thought they deserved as US citizens.

Don't count on it too much. It's a place already with tons of myths about their "exceptionalism" which don't quite measure up to reality, the "land of opportunity" with its "American dream" ...while, in actual measure of this stuff (social mobility), the US is at the bottom of developed countries (some of the countries popularly derided in the US, so called "nanny states", are at the top BTW).

A place of http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratrace.html myths - seems they sort of value "few super-patent-laden monopolies" ...which give conditions where people can dream that they will be one of the few who end up on top.